The scissors final snip liberates me of the locks over grown,
And creates a new silhouette around my face,
One that sat similar to a past one, but as a newer rendition.
The colour a combination of fading hues, out grown bleach, and dark roots,
The sides shaven short, and the top left long and loose.
I felt like a renewed me, a different individual,
No longer defined by the frugality of an overgrown home cut,
But shaped by the hands of a professional.
Living as though a person pampered, showered in shallow luxuries.
Looking at my reflection and regaining the power I felt for too long was lost.
But the power was not the item lost to me most,
No, for I have lost my definition.
 
I am at the whims of the family I hold together,
As my equal seems to drown in the life we have found ourselves in,
I hold afloat our raft, and provide for the three of us a sanctuary.
The safety net is spread wide enough to catch them and their baggage,
As my baggage is dragging through the murky waters behind us.
Each case holding a different aspect of me,
A portion hidden away indefinitely, until time allows me to unpack.
My heart cradles a child spawned from a careless woman.
A mother who desired a babe, but couldn’t protect the child,
Whose selfishness took over her instincts in favour of a demon.
 
The child loves me unconditionally, and I love more in return,
Handing over the remaining half of each breath I take,
Giving her each second heartbeat, and most every thought.
I ferry her across the unwelcoming seas, bearing the waves myself,
As she dances blissfully unaware of the storms we pass through.
But motherhood is not my definition, only an inherited title,
One I clench my hands tightly around to keep, but one I fear also.
 
I am spread thinly across each bag that floats along with us,
The literate, the musical, the angry, the calm, the loud, the quiet,
Among some of the guises interchangeably worn, but put back,
Restrained back into their hides, as I try to establish the singular face to wear,
Unknowingly losing any further identity in my search for one.
Writing under a name not given, but chosen, picked like cherries,
And not wanting liberation from anything other than myself.
 
Realizing maybe this is the meaning of grown, or maybe this is the meaning of trapped.